Re: Moog: Too much clutter

I now have most of the hydraulics and pneumatics and a good bit of
the electrics removed from the machine and it's beginning to look
like a Bridgeport again. Even the rotate and tilt for the ram are
now accessible. However, There's still all that stuff up on top of
the head, and apparently the drawbar mechanism is bound up some way
as trying to move the quill causes some deflection up there and
it'll only move 1/8" or so. That may come off next. I seem to recall
seeing a write up on a pneumatic drawbar using an air impact wrench
and may need to find that again as apparently the Moog used some
hydraulics there too.

One thing I do not like much is the huge casting the quill rides in,
with it's big housings for the twin z actuators. I'm seriously
considering whacking one side off entirely and bolting a plate over
the hole, shortening the shaft for the manual quill feed, and then
cutting the other side at a 45 degree angle. It seems to me a poor
design to have an actuator hung that far out on one side of the
quill so I may try to move it in closer as well. I seem to recall
something about the Boss series having some sort of concentric quill
drive for the z axis (or maybe it was some other machine).

Speaking of bad design, this thing must have driven the maintenance
guys absolutely bonkers. Allen screws behind stuff so that you can
only get 1/2 turn at a time seemed to be a design criteria, and
apparently if it was worth doing it was worth doing complicated.
Much of the functionality of the basic mill was compromised by
putting 'stuff' in the way, and I do believe they were going for the
Rube Goldberg championship. No matter, I have the technology to fix
most of it. Or will have.

Jim